The theft of sacred petroglyphs from a Columbia River Gorge park sets off a chain of violence ten years later.

Sheila Simonson made a name for herself in the 1990s with her highly praised five-book traditional-mystery series about Lark Dodge, a Pacific Northwest bookseller. Simonson then took ten years off from writing to care for elderly parents, but now shes back with her new Latouche County series. Set in a fictitious town and county along the Columbia River Gorge, among other things Buffalo Bills Defunct wrestles on the local level with the global problem of destruction of ancient artifacts. Simonson can remember visiting the salmon fishing sites along the Columbia as a child, before they were tragically drowned by the waters of The Dalles (Oregon) Dam.

Buffalo Bills Defunct also deals with the mentality of the collector, all the way from Lord Elgins Marbles to todays hoarder of artifacts and sacred objects from different and past cultures. The books title is taken from the poem (used as an epigraph) by e.e. cummings. It refers specifically here to one of the murder victims, a wild-west Libertarian type, and more generally to the old-fashioned conquering-the-West mentalitywhich is finally becoming nearly defunct in todays more sensitive and aware times.

Fascinating characters include a sheriffs investigator, perhaps too sensitive for his own good; the newly arrived head librarian, who calls herself Feckless Meg; the principal chief of the local tribe, reckless with lives in her quest to reclaim her peoples heritage; a county official who thinks laws are for others; a wealthy family eager to forget their small-town roots; various colorful townspeople, tribal members, and cops; and a terrific dog named Towser.

Sheila Simonson, a lifelong Pacific Northwest resident, taught college English and history before becoming a writer of historical fiction and then a successful mystery writer with the Lark Dodge series. She lives with her husband in Vancouver, Washington.